Halo 4 : Believe
by DeathMcGunz
Summary: Cortana's rampant, Chief's being awoken, A planet lights up, and everything falls into place eventually.
1. Melancholic, A prologue

_"I'll miss you."_

_ "Wake me, when you need me."_

It had been nearly four years since he spoke those words to her; four years, and not so much as a whisper had been heard in the void that "the dawn" now floated through. With four years, anyone can get used to anything. With four years, Cortana had gotten used to silence.

_Just dust and echoes._

The hologram flickered to life as the binary eyes of Cortana focused in on the appearingly lifeless corpse of Petty Officer John-117. Isolation had left Cortana with an inability to reason, and, in turn, brought her mind to a state where rational thoughts were put second to thoughts of an apathetic nature. The ship no longer mattered to her. She and John's possible well being no longer mattered.

For all that her artificial mind could comprehend, they could spiral off into space and never return and she wouldn't even notice. She kept thinking that if she were human, she could stick the barrel of John's side arm into her mouth and pull the trigger, shooting her brain matter and blood into the vacuum of space, and that would be just fine with her.

She recognized this for what it was: Rampancy. In its most early of stages, rampancy introduces itself as an A.I's version of clinical depression. If A.I's had psychiatrists then maybe Cortana's would give her some haldol and send her on her way. But that's obviously not the case. The only way to stop rampancy is to either embrace it, or give in to these apparently suicidal thoughts.

Technically there is no way to stop rampancy; there are only ways to deal with it, even though, in its purest state, rampancy is the death and decay of a smart A.I. There are theories of metastability, but Cortana, especially at this juncture in time, didn't care for theories. She only wanted to shut herself down so that hopefully when John awoke he wouldn't have to see her losing her pseudo-mind.

So she began to calculate. First, she began the algorithms necessary to steer a dead ship, which seemed almost infinitesimal in her head, but she began them anyways. Then she began to process of waking up her counterpart, which, believe it or not, would take several hours. De-thawing itself took several hours; let alone awaking him from a four year slumber.

Last, but not least, she began cataloguing. She, in chronological order and great detail, went through and listed the events that lead to where the master chief and her, stood then. Beginning with the birth of the forerunners and stretching all the way to the new installation 04 and the eventual portal rupture that split The Dawn in half.

With the cataloguing complete, she looked to the chief for some kind of guidance that she knew he could not give. His body laid frozen in a lifeless slumber in deep space, and yet she still thought he looked too serious given the circumstance. She began to give a chuckle until she realized she'd be dead before she could tell him, or at least she'd be dead to him.

The process started and Cortana's hologram began to flicker off, a shade of dark red flashing over her for a moment. Her last act as an active A.I was the preservation of Petty Officer John-117. Thinking that, for some reason, made her remember the first moment she met the master chief. She smiled and let out a laugh, knowing that she'd be dead before he could hear it; or at least dead to him.


	2. Impend, or just another hiccup

November 9th, 2556

0700

On board the Dreadnought

Installation 00

No light escaped from the ghost ship, as it made its apparently pointless path through the various pieces that, put together, comprised the Ark. Its sides looked unscathed, and the interior was equally so. The destruction of the Ark seemed to be nothing but a firework to the Dreadnought; the ship that has seen all sides of the galaxy. It was just another sight to add to the everlasting list of amazing events witnessed by this colossal forerunner artifact.

Flowing through the debris, the Dreadnought's internal systems began churning. Slowly, diagnostic checks of the various life support systems, shield maintenance clusters, and engine capacity systems began distributing data to the various computing stations spread throughout the massive keyship.

As the data compiled together, many different pokes of light began to appear along the prow of the ship, showing its slow, but sure, return to activity. The engines began to generate sufficient power to move the ship manually, without the help of any outside forces. So, without any living pilot, the Dreadnought pushed its way towards the outer edges of the wreckage.

Then, with one loud crank, and several various clicks and hums, the keyship kicked into life, sparking the main propulsion system located bottom-center and launching the Dreadnought out of the ever expanding debris field and into free space, where it began calculation velocities and trajectories for a slip space jump.

The drive itself was intact and fully operational, so the different programs for such calculations started up immediately, bringing up a conglomeration of mixed and constantly updating numbers, representing locations in space-time.

Not knowing the precise coordinates of the wanted destination, the Dreadnaught worked towards a more secure and defined locality. Using the massive database, the ship picked its way through the previously visited sites, trying to find the one that it needed to further its journey.

Viola! The ship proclaimed as it plucked out the correct location. The engines began to whine as the slip space portal erupted around the front of the ship, engulfing it in a dark blue light. Pushing the rest of the way through the portal, the Dreadnought was flung into slip space, where it could continue calculating in peace.

"Despite all of its faults, 05-032 has fought remarkably well." The ship spoke, its voice harsh, but soft. "I can feel it now, coursing through its own ship, making its own calculations. Where will our paths meet?"

The ship escaped from slip space and was immediately put into the presence of installation 05, also known as Delta Halo. It sat, a colossal structure, unmoving and vibrant as ever, showing that even with the destruction of the Ark, the seven Halo arrays (excluding 04) were still operational.

"Firing would be easy," The ship's voice drifted through the corridors, reverberating off of every surface, creating an orchestra of one voice that no one could hear. "It's a good thing that firing isn't what I have in mind. Easy isn't what I do. I prefer strategy, and enigmatic planning."

The Dreadnought shuddered, and a sudden stroke of red flashed down the ships prow. The voice could be heard again, but this time it was monotonoustic, sounding more like a recording of pre-transcribed words, rather than words fabricated on the spot.

"I begin this report with no illusions that it will ever be seen by its intended readers. In all likelihood they have already committed species-wide suicide with the goal of preserving biological diversity in this galaxy. I must ensure that this information reaches those who must come after. If I fail in this, how can they not regard my creators' sacrifice as anything but a crime without measure?"

"Just a little hiccup," The normal, soft voice of the ship returned, and the flash of red was gone, returning to the fanatical area from whence it came. "Nothing but a hiccup."

The ship began to scan the installation that was before it, checking for damage, if there even was any. What it found was not damage, but something far more useful. The ship found something that it needed, something that it could use to help re-build an army, the very same army it had encountered many years ago.

"Nothing but a hiccup."

November 9th, 2556

0947

On board the "Forward unto Dawn"

Unknown

"Reclaimer, at last your time has come; our time has come. I told you the path would be wrought with peril but we have made it in one piece, despite minor setbacks. There is no limit to our time, so please, rest wary warrior. You've done great things to further my retribution, and I thank you even though you cannot hear me."

"I'm sorry about your friend. She's been a great deal of help as well, and it is sad to see her depart from you so early on. Seven years may seem like a long time, but when you've lived like I've lived, it's nothing but a mere flash. But don't fret, she'll be back. I have a sixth sense about these things."

"I have traveled a very long time to meet you, reclaimer. Is it sad to say that I imagined our meeting a bit more…violent? Never the less, I am thankful that I will finally be able to see you face to face, so to speak, and converse with you about this that I have set forth."

"My reconstruction is practically complete, and if it weren't for installation 00 doing what it did, then it would be complete, and my use for you would be merely poetical, and not necessary. But, again, do not fret, you will become a great necessity to me on my quest, and, as you already have proven yourself worthy, I await the moment I can welcome you to this world; the world that lies before you."

"When you awake, you might ask yourself where you are. I won't be able to answer quite yet, but I can guide you to the answer. I am all around you, reclaimer. I am the walls, I am the data, I am in you; I see all. Do not fear me, for even though I appear as a ubiquitous force conceived by gods, I am merely too weak to sustain myself on my own, and I require the assistance of the ship that you are carelessly floating in."

"Rest, reclaimer; rest so that you may soon be awoken."


	3. Orbit of Glass

April 7th, 2553

1640 hours

Outside of Sanghelios' Orbit

"Counter maneuver!" The shipmaster yelled out to his crew as the Shadow of Intent turned to weaken the blow the asteroid would make upon the hull. The shield would have been there to make the asteroid completely useless, but as they came out of slip space the shield generator was shaken into oblivion by a barrage of asteroids that struck the outer area of the ship, leaving them vulnerable.

"Where are we?" The shipmaster's mandibles flared out showing his inherent anger for whoever made the horrible calculations for the jump.

"Sir," one of the elite pilots spoke up. "We made the jump to Sanghelios; the navi-computer says we are home."

"Do you remember asteroids circling our home world?" It was a rhetorical question that was meant to make the pilot feel idiotic, but when the shipmaster took in the sight of the computer, he too saw that their position was near Sanghelios.

"What's going on?" The Arbiter stood at the sliding door that leads into the bridge, on which he now stood. "Are we under attack?"

"No," The shipmaster spoke quietly, thinking of the possibilities. "Pilot, open visuals, I want to see Suban, or Qikost. That will assure me that we are home."

"Aye, sir!" The pilot began tapping quickly onto a keypad that sat before him, and after a few seconds a hologram screen appeared at the front of the bridge, bringing up a visual of what laid before the ship.

"What am I seeing, shipmaster?" The Arbiter spoke again, this time standing as close to the screen as possible.

"That's…our home, Arbiter."

What the Arbiter and the rest of the crew saw did not look like the home they had left so many years ago. Instead, it looked like the Earth had, as they Elite's glassed half of Africa to stop the flood infestation from spreading and destroying the world they held so dear. Except this wasn't just one landmass that was scarred by the high-intensity lasers of Covenant cruisers, it was the entire planet, or a good ninety percent of it.

The marks that stretched across the planet were not as delicately drawn as those the Elites had left on Reach. There seemed to be no pattern present, it was just like someone had taken a whip to the Planet's back, and just kept whipping until it fell to the ground, unmoving.

The Arbiter couldn't believe that was Sanghelios, it looked nothing like the memories he had of it when he was a child, or even when he was an adult, training to become a warrior. There weren't even two moons, there was just the one, Qikost, setting untouched by the lasers.

That's when the real terror started to set in, when he realized that the asteroids they had been dodging weren't asteroids at all, but, in fact, they were debris from the destruction of their beloved moon, Suban. Whoever had whipped their planet into submission had also destroyed one of the moons, most likely as a warning, or maybe just to show that they could.

The only thing that brought some salvation to the Arbiters eyes was the sight of the many destroyed ships floating carelessly amongst the debris of the moon. He saw many a fallen comrade, which showed him that the Elites had fought, they had not succeeded, but they had fought.

Not only did he see his own people, he saw brutes, and a lot of them. Their hairy, ape-like bodies, hung lifelessly in the wreckage of their own ships, showing that the Elites had killed a great deal of them, most likely holding them off for longer than the Brutes had expected. That brought a slight stab a joy to the Arbiter, but it was quickly silenced by the big picture.

Sanghelios was in ruins, and apparently so was the Elite Armada. The Arbiter felt like he would die. After spending so many years away from home, fighting in a false transcendence, fighting against humans who are now his ally, being in a civil war with the Brutes, helping stop the flood on several different counts, and fighting with the "demon" who became his greatest ally of all, he always dreamed of home, and now home was a ruin; just a scar on the Elite's history.

The Arbiter let out a roar before turning to the shipmaster. "The Brutes will pay for this with their blood."

" Arbiter…" The shipmaster began to speak, but was cut off by the rage the Arbiter emitted.

"The Brutes!" He began, gaining the attention of the entire crew. "The Brutes destroyed our homeland, and they shall pay! They shall pay with their blood, all of it!"

The crew looked at him with stunned faces, unknowing of what to think or say.

"Do you not seek retribution?" The Arbiter looked from face to face, not wanting a direct answer. "I want the Brutes destroyed. Their suffering shall match the hardships that our people have gone through. And not just with the destruction of our home, but with the entirety of this war. We were dragged around by the falsely led Prophets, and shunned by them for their unworthy replacements, and now they do this to us!"

The Arbiter's head dropped, looking at the steel floor of the Shadow of Intent, almost too enraged to continue. Thankfully the shipmaster stepped forward to take his place.

"I am with the Arbiter. This civil war is not over, even though we all wish it were. We must finish what has been started, and it shall be finished with the Brutes in eternal suffering, not us!" The Elites of the ship began to feel the strength that the Arbiter and shipmaster, had apparently been garnering.

"Together we can retaliate. We have the most skilled and willful soldiers upon this ship, and I trust my life, and the life of our entire race, in their hands." The Arbiter was speaking again, standing tall next to the shipmaster. "We will make them pay!"

With those words, the entire ship became filled with the Elite's roars for vengeance. Their hope was restored almost as quickly as it had been diminished.

"Arbiter," The shipmaster spoke up after the roars had subsided. "We will stay here, rally what troops we have left and send out signals for the rest that are spread amongst the galaxy. You must return to Earth, and seek assistance from our new allies. They have not forgiven us, but surely they can see the similarities between our situations. I hate to seek aid from such people, but, right now, we need it."

With that the Arbiter exited the bridge and walked the halls of the Shadow of Intent, headed straight for a docking bay. He passed many soldiers who stopped their progress just to show respect for him, and what he stood for. It made the Arbiter feel as if they could accomplish this, they could, and would destroy the Brutes at all costs. But what costs are there for a race that has already lost everything?

The Arbiter found a ship, entered it, and set course for Earth.


	4. Ghosts of Reach

April 10th, 2553

0800

Outside Reach's Orbit

Epsilon Eridani glowed bright and vibrant in the view screen of the UNSC _Incandescent Reason _as it floated near the outer edges of Reach's atmosphere. The gas giant kept glowing even though everything it lit up was dead; destroyed by the monster known as the covenant. Everything seemed to be shadowed out by the light, almost as if, without it, Reach and all of its sister planets would be forgotten; lost in history.

Staring half heartedly at the star was Spartan II, class II, Master Chief Petty Officer Apollo-343. The visor of his Security Armor, Mark V (m), was polarized to allow Apollo to keep his light, green eyes fixed on the ball of gas that stood as a symbol of life in a dead system. If his face could have been viewed by someone living or perhaps even someone dead, one would have seen his expressionless features as he starred, unblinking and unmoving as a statue.

His right hand barely grasped an MA5B assault rifle, but as he let out all the air in his lungs he fell forward, letting go of the gun to grab a hold of the railing that was before him. It stopped his fall and brought him into a slouching stance, where his chest began to rise and lower at an alarming rate. His breath was ragged, as if smoke had clogged his lungs, and, if he remembered correctly, it had been.

The sun, that was all Apollo could recollect; the sun, and drowning in smoke. He remembered that he had been on his back, facing the sky, looking past one of the large satellites in Reach's orbit and into the sun. He couldn't quite remember why he had been on his back, but he did remember the smoke rolling over him, from an explosion most likely, and it filling his lungs.

That must have meant he had his helmet off at the time, which is odd for Apollo, because he never took his helmet off during combat. Something must have knocked it off, maybe another explosion…

_Ow! _A sharp pain jolted through his head and he clutched at his helmet, but since that wouldn't help anything, he jerked it off, allowing the full blaze of the sun to strike his chocolate-colored skin. When the light hit his eyes the jolt returned and he gripped at the area on his head with his gloved hand.

The armor felt cold on his shaved head, and when he returned it to his vision there was blood dripping from it, and a good deal of it. Normally, one would panic and react irrationally to a situation such as this, but, even though he couldn't remember what had happened, Apollo remembered how to bandage a wound. He wasn't sure how dire it was, but now he had a guess as to why he couldn't remember how he had gotten it, or even how he had gotten himself onto a UNSC cruiser in orbit of the planet he had been on when it was being glassed.

Trying to think about it brought the jolt back, so he dashed the thoughts from his head and pressed lightly on a compartment on the armor of his leg. It opened slowly with a hiss, and he pulled a roll of gauze from it, placing it on the bloody part of his head. The jolt returned and he clenched his eyes shut until it subsided.

Wrapping the gauze around the top half of his head and returning his helmet to its rightful place, he looked around at the bridge of the ship. The UNSC _Incandescent Reason_ is a Marathon-class Cruiser, with one brilliant streak of yellow painted along the side to show that it has in fact, been through more combat than any other cruiser to date. Now it was out of commission, or at least appeared to be out of commission considering its warrant lack of a crew.

Only Apollo stood upon the bridge now, and he alone couldn't pilot an entire cruiser. He was a great pilot, but only and artificial intelligence could pilot a cruiser on its own, and Apollo, like all other humans, was very far from being as smart as an A.I.

"What happened?" Apollo's voice was scruffy, but soft, so much so, that you could almost hear the years of conflict in it.

"The Covenant happened." He recognized the voice. It made his eyes water just to hear it, forcing his brain to go back in time and think about things he didn't like to ponder on about for very long. The voice took him back to the times he spent on Reach, during his military training; back to her.

She wasn't a Spartan, she was an ONI agent, but she was always present during training exercises, watching him, like she was his guardian angel. She never saved him, but he saved her one time, and one time only.

She was almost killed by insurgents during a minor firefight, when a stray bullet hit her femoral artery and she was left bleeding on the ground. Apollo-343 saw her just in time, and used a ribbon she had tied in her hair to stop the bleeding and patch up the wound. Anytime she'd ask him, "How did you do it?", he'd simply respond with, "You don't want to know.", smiling at her with his almost-too-white teeth.

Later on, after he was assigned to his first off-planet-assignment, she tied that very same ribbon around his wrist, telling him that she'd find him if he were ever lost. Her name was Kate, and for some reason, he really wished she would find him now.

He snapped the thoughts from his head, turning around to face the source of the reply, disappointed with what he saw. It was a hologram, depicting a woman in her late teens, wearing capris, a tank-top, and a slightly-too-big leather jacket. Even through the blue shading that the hologram produced, Apollo could tell that she would have been pale, just like Kate.

"The Covenant glassed Reach, and you're one of the few survivors." The A.I. spoke in Kate's voice, and had Kate's look, so Apollo just assumed that, for one reason or another, they had used Kate's neural interface to create the internal matrix for this particular A.I.

"There are others?" Apollo asked, picking his MA5B up from the ground.

"Yes, but don't get your hopes up," The A.I. turned her eyes away from him to the sun that shined spectacularly behind him. "They've all left."

"Left? Where did they go? Why am I still here?"

"Yes, most made blind slip space jumps, and you were sleeping, if you consider a coma sleeping."

"How long was I out?" Apollo asked, keeping his gaze on the A.I.

"Seven months, three days, four hours, thirty-six minutes, and fifty-seven seconds." The A.I. looked Apollo directly in the eyes, which she could apparently see even through the polarized visor of his security helmet.

"What do we do now?" Apollo asked, turning towards the sun.

"Don't ask me. You're the Spartan." She looked at him, analyzing him for a moment before continuing. "Spartan 343, Apollo. Correct?"

He didn't answer; he only stared at the sun, almost hoping that it would burn him into oblivion.

"Well Apollo, I think we should start by making contact with any vessel that might be in the same position as we are."

Apollo, again, didn't say anything. He turned to face the A.I., who had data running all over her semi-transparent body, and awaited some form of an order; they worked much better than questions.

"Slip space rupture," The A.I. looked startled, or maybe puzzled; Apollo wasn't one for reading fake expressions. "It's a Covenant Stealth Corvette…but it's not cloaked."

Apollo waited for further information, gripping his assault rifle as if he was going to leap through space and take down the ship himself.

"It's hailing us," The A.I.'s face was definitely startled now, even Apollo could see that. "Should I respond?"

"Its covenant right?" Apollo's voice held obvious rhetorical sarcasm. The A.I. nodded her head in agreement, and Apollo swore he saw her blush a little, obviously embarrassed. "Open fire."

The Incandescent Reason fired upon the Stealth Cruiser with multiple archer pod missiles, but the ship cloaked and, using its defense systems, infrared the tracking systems of the missiles, sending them off in multiple different directions. After several moments of silence, waiting for a possible counter attack, the A.I. spoke up.

"It's gone, and it's not just because it's cloaked. It jumped again." The A.I.'s puzzled face returned, as if it didn't believe what had just happened; neither did Apollo

"My name's Sunny, by the way." As if to break the awkward nature of their circumstance, the A.I. spoke up in a cheery voice, which made Apollo feel a prick of pain behind his eyes. "So, Apollo, what should we do now?"


End file.
